The Two Millionth Volume and Commemorative Volumes, Spring 2001

In the Spring of 2001, the University Libraries celebrated the acquisition of its Two Millionth Volume, by acquiring
a number of significant titles to add to the Libraries' Department of Special Collections.
Eleanor Roosevelt's first book,
It's Up To the Women, has been chosen
as the Libraries' official Two Millionth Volume. When her husband was stricken
with polio in 1921, Mrs. Roosevelt became active in the women's division of the
New York State Democratic Committee in order to keep his interest in politics alive.
In becoming his spokesperson, she discovered her own interest in improving the
political and social conditions of the underprivileged. In this, her first book,
Mrs. Roosevelt sought to rouse women to political and social action. It embodies
the activist spirit which Mrs. Roosevelt brought to the role of First Lady and is
significant in the evolution of the role of women in politics. This first edition,
in the original dust jacket, is an exciting complement to the research collections
in the University Libraries' Archives of Public Affairs and Policy which document
New York State public policy issues in the twentieth century.

Six other titles have been purchased by the University Libraries as part of the
Year of the Two Millionth Volume. Another book by Eleanor Roosevelt,
It Seems To Me, is a 1954 compilation of questions and answers originally
published in women's magazines for which Mrs. Roosevelt wrote a monthly column.
The material covers twenty-four subjects such as education, women, religion,
foreign policy, children, and little-known information about the Roosevelts.
Coming from one of the most remarkable women of that period in our history,
readers looked to it for guidance, reassurance, and inspiration in their lives.
It should be noted that the Complete Presidential Press Conferences of
Franklin D. Roosevelt was the title selected as the University Libraries'
One Millionth Volume, therefore increasing the suitability of Mrs. Roosevelt's
works during this Year of the Two Millionth Volume.

Wade & Croome's Panorama of the Hudson River from New York to Albany
is an unusually interesting 1847 black and white strip map designed as a
traveler's guide to the Hudson River. Contained within an 11 x 16cm. red cloth
volume decorated in gilt, the engraved, pictorial map unfolds to 382 x 16cm.,
nearly 14 feet long. It shows a view of both shorelines of the Hudson River
exactly as they were seen from shipboard in 1844 with many buildings, lighthouses,
hills, islands, ships in the river, creek names, boat houses and Revolutionary War
chains that spanned the river. It is a unique example of mid-nineteenth century
U.S. cartography with the addition of local interest. The map is accompanied by a
38-page descriptive pamphlet.

Anatole Claudin's Histoire de l'Imprimerie en France au Xve et au XVIe
Siecle, is an original four-volume edition which was published on the
occasion of the Exposition Universelle Internationale in 1900. The work aimed to
trace the beginning and development of the art of printing in France during the
15th and 16th centuries. The principal ateliers are discussed, in chronological
order, with numerous examples of their publications. The volumes are beautifully
printed, with specially designed type and the finest paper, and contain numerous
wood and metal cuts, illuminations and reproductions of title pages with colored,
decorative initial letters. Claudin died before completing the fourth volume of
what was considered by his successor, Paul Lacombe, to be the "most beautiful
monument to have been erected to the glory of French typography."

The 1930 Chicago Lakeside Press edition of Herman Melville's Moby Dick,
limited to 1000 copies, has a dual significance for the Albany area and New York
State. Melville, born in New York City in 1819, frequently visited his mother's
family in Albany during vacations, and, after his father moved the family to
Albany in 1830, Melville first attended and then taught at local schools. In 1840
he began a series of travels which became the basis of many of his writings. This
three-volume folio edition was designed and illustrated by Rockwell Kent. Kent
combined his love of painting with years of travel experiences in Maine,
Newfoundland, Alaska and Greenland. The 280 images for Moby Dick which he
created from first-hand knowledge of the sea are considered to be a masterpiece
and a landmark of 20th century book illustration. From 1927 until his death in
1971, Kent lived on a 200-acre farm in Ausable Forks, NY and continued to be a
prolific artist and a major figure in the cultural history of the Adirondacks.

Internationally acclaimed kinetic sculptor, George W. Rickey, a resident of East
Chatham, NY, relies on gravity, equilibrium, and momentum, but never a motor, to
move his exquisitely engineered stainless steel forms. As the author of
Constructivism: Origins and Evolution (1967), he followed the development
of Constructivism from its Russian origins in 1913, its spread throughout Europe,
and through its later manifestations in the United States, providing an
understanding of this important twentieth-century art movement. This first
edition of Rickey's work contains over 350 illustrations, biographies of
established artists and outstanding contemporaries from that period, an exhaustive
bibliography on constructivism, and a chronology detailing the movement. Mr.
Rickey's sculpture is displayed in public places, museums, and private collections
throughout the world.